


Promise

by delusion_al



Series: Naruto Shinden: Rewritten [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, One Shot, POV Haruno Sakura, Protective Haruno Sakura, Protective Uchiha Sasuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26356618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delusion_al/pseuds/delusion_al
Summary: A slightly different take on Sasuke's defection from the Leaf - in which Sakura fights back.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: Naruto Shinden: Rewritten [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919203
Kudos: 24





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been sitting on this idea for a while - essentially 'rebooting' some iconic moments throughout Naruto to my liking and making them a lil bit darker to suit the general hell that is the ninja world. Expect some character death & training montages (i.e. Kakashi actually being a proper sensei) & my girls getting some highlights.
> 
> For this one-shot, I basically wanted to revamp the interaction between Sasuke & Sakura during his defection. I felt like Sakura needed more of a concrete reason to not join the others on the retrieval mission, aside from being emotionally defunct, and that she deserved a bit of dynamism in Part I beyond her girl fight with Ino - such as attempting to take on the Sound Four. My girl may not be very strong at this point but like heck would she be letting Sasuke go without a fight. 
> 
> Also, I'm not great with fight scenes sooo.....apologies ^^;

_I believe your promise._

_It's too hard to give me courage._

_Always I feel it_

_\- the precious time with you._

約束

She should be dead.

If not from her suicidal headlong rush into the eye of a blue Rasengan-fuelled Chidori-infused lightning tornado, then at least from her short-lived experience as a shinobi. Impalement, poisoning, chakra exhaustion, drowning, evisceration were just a few of the fatalities she’d narrowly avoided on her first mission – and since then there’d been a forest specifically designed to kill its trespassers, giant flesh-eating snakes, and even a one-tailed sand demon.

On account of her job and her blatant inability to do it well, Sakura really ought to be dead by now.

She pondered this absently as she assessed the damage done – the two incapacitated water tanks. One whose front has been ripped open, peeling back layers of metal like the skin of a fruit, the other with its back blown clean off. If Kakashi-sensei hadn’t intervened, that would’ve been her. She was thirteen now and her own mortality was as apparent as if she were ninety. Cherry blossoms were never meant to last long.

But she hadn’t even bloomed yet, couldn’t break a water tank even if she tried. Her teammates had no problem with that. _They could’ve killed each other. They could’ve killed me._ And she couldn’t have done anything about it. She imagined Naruto, electrified, the skin of his chest punched in on itself – Sasuke, with his back ripped open, spine shining in the sun, and shuddered. She’d already seen him die once – never again.

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto grumbled, and she saw he was sulking. “Don’t get in my way!”

It shocked her. He’d never spoken to her like that before. The only person to point out her flaws so boldly was Sasuke. It took her back to the Chūnin Exams and her redundancy there too – when he’d been given the curse mark in the Forest of Death, told her to keep it quiet, not to burden him with her uselessness.

_Promise me you won’t mention this mark to Naruto. If he knows, he’ll waste energy worrying about me._

He looked so guilty now, like he’d said the wrong thing. Maybe it was – wrong enough for her break a promise.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Come with me now!”

約束

It was dark by the time they’d finished speaking and Sakura had wasted enough time wallowing in her room. She’d told Naruto everything and, while to it felt to good to have a clear chest, it didn’t do much for her head. Sasuke was still sick, she was still useless, and he probably still hated her.

She didn’t know where Kakashi-sensei had taken him, but she reckoned it’d be somewhere close to his apartment. As much as Naruto had tried to make her feel better about the whole ordeal, about this supposed binding contract Orochimaru had injected into Sasuke’s skin, she couldn’t help but worry.

She walked towards the Uchiha Compound to the sound of a skylark’s song, the trill of its call fanciful and wavering, bringing apples in a basket to make up for the one he’d thrown to the floor earlier in the hospital. Maybe now he’d have calmed down enough to let her cut them properly. She could cook him a nice meal, redress his wounds, even run him a bath –

Sakura stopped. It was the first week of September, too late in the year for an exaltation of skylarks. With the chill of autumn encroaching and the reddening of summer’s green leaves, they should’ve been long gone, migrating to the south. She gently laid down her basket and took a deep breath.

_Release._

At once, the birdsong dissipated, replaced instead by a collection of voices carried through the trees from above. _A genjutsu? Inside the village? But why?_ It was too advanced for Sasuke himself to pull off, even if he wanted to be left alone, and she doubted Kakashi-sensei would indulge his wants so easily. Unless he was trying to test her. She wouldn’t put it past him actually.

As she drew closer to their conversation, however, she realised how wrong she is.

The genjutsu wasn’t Kakashi’s, but someone else’s. Someone she didn’t recognise.

She concealed herself as best she could and scaled the trunk of the oak nearest to her. The leaves she touched were rough and crisping, and she cursed as the sound carried – but there was no reaction, so they might’ve just put it down to the wind.

She was no sensory-type but she knew before seeing who they belonged to that the chakra signatures were foreign. Three – no, _four_ – ninja and Sasuke himself, outside the walls of his apartment. He was outnumbered and she wasn’t panicking, _she wasn’t_ , but shouldn’t she run for help? Where’s Kakashi-sensei?

_Stay calm. The first thing to do is observe._

“Wonder why Orochimaru-sama wants this guy,” an unfamiliar voice crept through the trees and she was as close as she dares to get. Through a gap in the leaves she could see Sasuke, still in his pyjamas, lit by the soft orange glow of his bedroom window behind him – held upside-down by his ankle by a grey-haired shinobi. “Kimimaro woulda been better than this.”

Sakura slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle herself. _Orochimaru. They’ve been sent to kidnap him._ They weren’t wearing any headbands, but she guessed they were from the Sound – she counted three. The one holding Sasuke, a large ginger-haired brute, and a girl with long red hair.

“If you stay in this stupid little village,” Sasuke’s captor continued with a voice as violent as silk, “You’ll remain human. You won’t get any stronger.” He was so limp in his grasp, barely moving. “You’ll just keep rotting away playing ninja with your friends here.”

“Come with us!” the girl ordered. “Orochimaru-sama will give you power!”

 _It’s not an abduction. It’s a proposition._ Naruto had told her he was strong and dangerous, one of the legendary Sannin along with Tsunade and Jiraiya. “Don’t worry, Sakura-chan!” he’d said. “Sasuke won’t be tempted by him. He’s super strong too, I promise!” She wanted so badly to believe him but with the way he seemed so placid in that grip…

She drew a kunai from her pouch.

And something grabbed her.

Multiple hands, groping her arms and legs all at once, pulling her close. She made to scream but something clamped over her mouth and she was muffled by a palm that stunk of decay. “Caught like a fly in a web,” a voice hissed into her ear then bellowed, “Sakon! I’ve got her!”

“Oh?” The grey-haired shinobi turned to regard her, leering over a shoulder that looked to be horrifically bent out of shape – _what was he keeping under his shirt?_ – and despite her struggling she was hoisted off her feet, carried in a death grip out into the open. “Nice job, Kidōmaru.”

“Sakura!” Sasuke choked through gritted teeth from where he was still suspended, and she felt tears in her eyes already. She wanted to badly to scream an apology, but nothing got past the gag of flesh, even when she tugged with her arms – how was _doing_ that? She felt four arms encasing her and reaching around her neck to her mouth…he had _six_.

“Friend of yours?” the red-haired girl spat. “Tch. She was smart to pick up on my genjutsu, but stupid to think she could spy on us.”

The largest of the four shifted towards her. “Let’s kill her.”

Sasuke snarled. Suddenly sprang to life – twisting in Sakon’s grip so fiercely that he was forced to let go. Before he did, however, he flung him away with a strength Sakura wouldn’t have thought his malformed body possessed.

“What’s this!?” Sakon jeered, hysterical. Sasuke smashed into the wall of his apartment complex and Sakura flinched. No matter how hard she tried to wrench herself free, Kidōmaru’s grip was like a vice. “You want to protect her? You’re too weak.”

“I could snap her neck right now if I wanted,” Kidōmaru sneered. The feel of his breath hot against the back of her ear made her feel sick, sicker than fear. She’d left her fear behind in Wave Country.

Sasuke was bent double, breathing heavily into his knee, clutching his neck – like he’d cracked a rib, or bruised one at the very least. _Oh, no._ The way his fingers curled into the skin of his neck like that – it could only mean one thing. Sasuke looked up, sweat glistening on his forehead, Sharingan eyes crimson with malice. Half of his face bled black like a disease. Sakura practically sobbed through the palm against her lips at the sight.

“Try it,” he growled.

“You,” Sakon stuttered, “have a curse mark?”

There was a momentary pause then, where each Sound nin stiffened – enough of a pause for Sakura’s thrashing to break through the cage of Kidōmaru’s arms, to loop one of her knees up to her chest and push back so hard that he stumbled. She slipped down his abdomen, ducking beneath his arms rolling forwards and out of the tree, propelled partly by chakra and partly by the scramble of her limbs.

Sasuke charged for him. He jumped the span of the gap between roof and branch above her, screeching.

He was struck down.

“Sasuke!”

And then they were both falling, and she barely caught him in her arms before they hit the floor. The Four descended onto them, a tight diamond around the two. Sakura screamed, which earned her a kick to the cheek. Her nose started running tirelessly, dripping blood onto where Sasuke lay in her arms.

“That won’t work,” the red-head grumbled. “We’re in a genjutsu. No-one can hear you.”

“You’re not Orochimaru-sama’s only pet,” Kidōmaru soothed and to her horror, through dizzy, drunken eyes she saw the same blotch-black pattern beading across his skin too. A curse mark of his own. “You shouldn’t use it so recklessly, especially since you can’t even control it. If you keep it in a released state for too long it will erode your body and once it erodes you completely, you’ll be lost forever.”

Her cheek throbbed and Sasuke stirred somewhat. She could feel his bare arm in her palm, blistering with the heat of the mark as it retracted. It was her fault – _her fault_ – for getting captured. Why did she have to get captured?

“In return for gaining the power of the curse mark we’re bound to Orochimaru-sama,” the read-head explained. “We no longer have freedom.” She reached for Sakura in a lightning-quick, cat-like grab, dragging her backwards by the scruff of her dress. The whiplash jostled her head in the movement, and she feared she might vomit. “To gain something, you must also give something up.”

Sasuke was crouching again, breathing heavy, skin waxen in the lowlight – unmarred now by the curse. Tired, still sickly. “Let her go.”

Sakura felt cold steel bite the side of neck. A kunai. Her grip was _tight_ – it felt like being choked. One hand instinctively came up to her neck, the other she forced around her back and into her pouch, fumbling for a weapon, something, _anything_. “What’s your purpose?” the girl continued, and she could faintly hear the smile in her voice. “You gonna live in this worthless village with your friends? Keep licking each other’s wounds? Trying to forget Itachi Uchiha?”

 _His_ name changed everything. Sakura knew – _he_ , the wretched Uchiha, the clan’s mass murdered – the bane and ghost of Sasuke’s life. She felt the air drained of his motivation, his killing intent. At once, her mind was clear.

With a screech she didn’t even know she’d been capable of, she twisted out of the girl’s clammy grip, ripping her dress open down the back. She felt a warm trickle down the side of her neck from where it had been nicked by the blade, but she didn’t care. The girl, barely side-tracked, started towards her – only to come face-to-face with a handful of smoke.

It was foul-smelling but enough of distraction to get them _away_.

_Doton: Moguragakure no Jutsu!_

She burrowed them deep beneath the ground to spring up someplace else – fucking _anywhere_ else. Silently thanking Kakashi-sensei for his forethought in teaching her a jutsu he was also well-versed in and the gods for prescribing her a defensive chakra nature, the dirt spat them out some meters away, in the quiet foliage skirting the abandoned Uchiha Compound.

It was hard enough transporting herself underground but Sasuke too? He could barely move, his ankles still submerged in the dirt while she dusted herself off.

“Oh, god,” she cursed. She’d be lucky to buy enough time to dig him out and escape, but she had to start somewhere. “Sorry.”

He was scowling at her, the darkness lining his face more ominous than before. “Sakura,” he said, very slowly. “What are you doing?” Could he just _not_ have one of his nihilistic rants at her right now?

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped, fingernails ploughing through cakey dirt around his bare feet. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s a difficult jutsu to master on one person, let alone two.”

His fingers closed around her wrist, biting hard. It hurt. “No,” he hissed. “What are you doing _here_?”

She stared at him blankly. She must’ve looked awful, nose ruddy, one cheek swelling, eyes puffy and still watering. It wasn’t satisfactory, she knew. She couldn’t lie and she couldn’t protect him – she wasn’t made for such thing. _Don’t worry, Sakura-chan! Sasuke won’t be tempted by him. He’s super strong too, I promise!_

“Sasuke-kun,” she started, fighting to keep her voice level. “I know the deal with your clan, but revenge for its own sake…that won’t make anyone happy. Not you, Sasuke…not me either.”

His face was entirely one of utter disgust. He practically threw her hands back to herself, wrenching his own feet from the ground.

“I don’t care,” he snarled. “I’m not like you. I’m on a different path – I _choose_ revenge. That’s all I’ve lived for. I can never be like you.”

The night was silent around them. Not a good sign – shinobi always moved in the quiet. The Four must’ve been near, must’ve figured their location by now, must be closing in. She kept her kunai poised in front of her.

“So, that’s it?” Sakura hissed. “You’re choosing the lonely path?”

Sasuke pushed himself away from her as though he were repulsed by her mere presence. “How could you ever understand?”

She couldn’t keep her voice from rising. “Remember, you showed me what it means to be lonely! I _do_ understand! It’s all painfully clear to me. I have family and friends but, Sasuke, if I lose you then all of that means nothing. I’m so in love with you that I can’t even stand it!”

“I love romance,” Sakon whispered against the nape of her neck. She wheeled around, aiming for the throat, just too slow. His hand was back on her tender, bleeding neck, keeping her at arm’s length. “Sasuke,” he leered. “Don’t forget your purpose. This village can only hinder you. All you gotta do is snip your worthless ties, then you can gain an even greater power.”

 _No!_ Her breath came shorter, the grip on her weapon failing – tongue choking her in the back of her throat, nails digging in, Sakon’s grip too tight…

Something yanked her back with the force to cripple her windpipe. She coughed, hacking dryly, starved for oxygen, lying flat against Sasuke’s chest. She vaguely registered in the foreground Sakon’s horrifying screech of pain but could only drown in the dizzying triple tomoe of the Sharingan boring deep into her skull.

“Sasuke-kun…?” she rasped. Something greater than air poured into her lungs – the hope that he would _stay_. “Stay with me and I’ll never let you regret it. I’ll do anything for you. I’ll even help you take revenge. I’ll manage it somehow.”

“You,” Sasuke drawled, voice darker than the total eclipse of the sun, “Will never change.”

There was such an awfulness of absolute repose on his face that she lay dumb before him. He had no smile, but the fire in his eyes was deep as the centre. And with the repose that lay there on his face a shimmer as of moonlight, which seemed as if any moment it might break into such a ravishing smile as would cause the beholder to weep himself to death.

But the smile never came, and the moonlight lay there unbroken. For the heart of him was too deep for any smile to reach from it to his face.

His hand was on her shoulder blade, burning hot, threading a sickly soporific chakra into her veins – a stab in the back if there ever was one. “Don’t,” she choked. “Don’t you leave me!”

Her world faded to black on red.

約束

The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the sky dark red, marked the scraps of cloud with stolen gold. She watched it through the window of her hospital room one-eyed – her cheek had been bandaged. She’d been awake since four.

“Lady Hokage told me what happened,” Shikamaru said. He’d let himself in. A chūnin now, in his flak jacket he looked relatively composed, leader-like, but there was a tightness to his voice. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take you on this mission.”

She already knew. He was leading a retrieval squad out into the wilds to do what she could not. She was too banged up to go, too fragile, would only hold them back. Shikamaru gulped. “Even you couldn’t persuade him, right?”

No, of course she couldn’t. Her love wasn’t enough for him, could barely even scratch the surface. Would that she could take on all his pain for herself.

Naruto made a sound of surprise. He’d been surprisingly quiet. She knew the others were waiting outside – Neji, Kiba, Chōji. Even Lee on his crutches. He couldn’t go anyway – had his surgery today. He’d brought her a flower.

“Sakura, your role has ended,” Shikamaru stated then, matter-of-fact. “Our only recourse is to persuade him with force.”

It wasn’t necessarily about the fact that Orochimaru had stolen the precious Uchiha heir from right under their noses. It was more that Sakura had been found half-beaten on the only road leading out of the village in the early hours of the morning, hair tangled and sticking to the cut on her face. That made it personal.

They didn’t know that Sasuke had dealt the final blow. She’d never tell them.

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto murmured. “Does that mean you…?”

He trailed off at the onset of her tears. He always was too soft.

She took a deep breath. Scrunched her eyes shut against their warmth. “Naruto. This…this is my wish of a lifetime.” Her voice was raw. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop him. So now the only person who can stop him – _save him_ – is you. Just you.”

There was a depth to their bond she couldn’t grasp, no matter how far she reached forwards. They were miles ahead of her, on distant horizons.

“Sakura-chan,” he said, and his voice was so soft, so full she had to meet his gaze. It was so sad “You sure do care about Sasuke. I know what you’re going through now. I know all too well.”

Months ago, when she’d been younger, filled with fear and hopes of a future it was doubtful she’d ever reached, she’d convinced herself he was nothing. He didn’t try hard in the academy. He didn’t have discipline. He didn’t have morals. “If he had his way,” she’d said. “I’d never find love or happiness. Naruto doesn’t understand me at all. I can’t stand to have him anywhere near me.”

But now, to hear him – _understand_ – the pain of her abandonment. She wanted to stand by him. She knew she could not.

“Naruto,” she hiccupped, hugging herself tight against the onslaught of sobs. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay. I’ll bring back Sasuke for sure! That’s my **promise** of a lifetime!”

約束

_You saw along along_

_And still you always helped me._


End file.
